One of the most closely contested presidential elections in history stood on the verge of becoming an equally divisive legal battle Wednesday, as teams for Democratic Vice President Al Gore and Republican challenger George W. Bush descended on Florida in an effort to secure the state’s make-or-break 25 electoral votes.
Even before daybreak, the state’s election laws were dictating the necessary course of events: The slim popular vote margin between the two candidates in Florida–just 1,784 votes out 5.8 million cast–automatically triggered a provision that requires a recount.
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State Democratic activists and Gore campaign legal advisers were considering a number of other possible challenges Wednesday, actions that could possibly delay the resolution of the 2000 presidential election for days, even weeks.
State election officials struggled with a lawsuit filed by voters challenging what they claimed was a confusing ballot in Palm Beach County. In Miami, a ballot box was discovered forgotten at a day-care center that served as a polling place. The box was locked and later was found to be filled with office supplies not vote cards. There also were allegations of voter intimidation and disproportionately long lines at polling stations in minority neighborhoods.
A Justice spokeswoman said the agency had received a number of complaints of voting irregularities from throughout the country–including some in Florida–and that all would be examined. The department, she said, would not get involved in the Florida vote recount.
Gore’s campaign dispatched a team of legal advisers led by former Clinton Secretary of State Warren Christopher to Florida to watch over the recount and consider possible legal challenges. Bush sent his senior legal adviser, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, to scrutinize the count.
Some observers predicted the recount would not significantly change the outcome in Florida, where Bush holds a lead of less than 2,000 votes, because of advances in voting technology.
“In the old days, when you had paper ballots or unreliable mechanical machines, they were more prone to errors and even fraud,” said Jan Baran, a Washington attorney and an expert in election law. “These days, we have more electronic voting devices and some tabulating voting devices in the form of punch cards. The recount is more of a mechanical, mathematical process.”
Once the recount is complete, however, the election in Florida likely will remain undecided because of the outstanding absentee ballots from overseas. And even after those votes are in, the outcome still may be unclear. When the final votes are tallied, most observers predict lawsuits, either by the voters or the candidates themselves.
In a press conference Wednesday, Gore campaign manager William Daley declined to say whether Gore would challenge results if he doesn’t win the state but suggested that voters could certainly do so.
In two other close presidential elections, 1876 and 1960, the losing candidates decided not to challenge the vote in court. But, as legal observers noted, this astonishingly close vote, along with an energized electorate, raises the possibility of an individual citizen filing a suit.
“If you’re talking about the whole election turning on what is happening in Florida, you can bet there are going to be lawsuits,” said Joseph Little, a professor and expert on Florida government law at the University of Florida College of Law.
By Wednesday morning, the strongest case to contest the Florida vote results came in Palm Beach County, where many voters complained that ballots were so confusing they mistakenly voted for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan instead of Gore.
Gore carried Palm Beach County by 110,000 votes, but Buchanan received 3,407 votes–far more than he received in other Florida counties. Some of those votes came from precincts that are predominantly black or Jewish, voting groups that are unlikely to support Buchanan.
Late Wednesday, three voters filed a suit in state court challenging the ballot, which was drawn up by the county’s Democratic supervisor of elections.
Maude Ford Lee, the Democratic chair of the county’s board of commissioners, said the form was “a serious confusion–if you can imagine any black folk voting for Pat Buchanan. I’ve had many complaints from my constituents. The ballot, in my personal estimation, was set up improperly.”
Denise Dytrych, the Palm Beach county attorney, said the ballot form would withstand a legal challenge.
“It was a legal ballot,” Dytrych said. “The state prescribes the form of the general election ballot, and the supervisor of elections is required to put it in substantially the same form.”
Florida law allows virtually anyone with a stake in the election to challenge the results because of misconduct, fraud, corruption or a catch-all complaint that “any other cause or allegation, which, if sustained, would show the person other than the successful candidate was the person who should have been elected.”
To challenge those votes, Little said lawyers likely will turn to the broad, catch-all provision in the state law. But he and others said it will be difficult to convince a Florida state court judge that the votes are invalid.
Most challenges to election results in Florida have been unsuccessful, Little said, particularly without evidence of fraud or misconduct. Moreover, it will be hard, he said, to prove that voters mistakenly cast ballots for Buchanan.
Even if a court challenge convinced a judge the ballot was illegal, other observers said the remedy was hard to fathom. Holding another vote in Palm Beach County would be unlikely, in part because of the prospect of an arm-twisting spectacle to get voters to the polls.
In addition, it could well prompt a Bush challenge, seeking to get another statewide vote, they said. That is most unlikely, according to the legal observers.
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